Interconnections and Uneasy Alliances Between the Black and South Asian Diasporas: A Study of Hip Hop Videos, Film and Literature

This dissertation challenges the belief that racialized communities do immediately support and identify with each other; my research on the Black and South Asian diasporas unearths the Orientalist thoughts and anti-Black racisms that exist in each respective community. Using the work of Edward Said in his text, Orientalism, and research on racial triangulation by Asian Americanist Claire Jean Kim, my work attempts to clarify the often-conflicted relations and dynamics between South Asians, Blacks, and whites. Chapter two of this dissertation looks at romantic and sexual involvement between different racial communities; I specifically look at the films Mississippi Masala and Bhaji on the Beach to delve into the cultural rarity that is the Black-South Asian romance. Chapter three discusses Black Orientalism in American hip hop videos by such artists as Truth Hurts, and Timbaland and Magoo. Finally, chapter four looks at gendered dynamics and longings for blackness in the texts Consensual Genocide, by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Londonstani, by Gautam Malkani.